When Jon and Keith Meacham move their family from Manhattan to Nashville, they can't help bringing along a bit of urban panache

Living Room

Living Room

It was meant to be a casual tour of real estate, an almost routine exercise, and another component of the conversation Keith and Jon Meacham had been having for the better part of 10 years: What if we left Manhattan? What if the kids could grow up in an actual house? What if we decided on Nashville? The discourse intensified at the start of every school year, when they closed up their summer place in Sewanee, Tennessee (where Jon went to college and now teaches a course), and returned to their Upper East Side apartment (where sisters Mary and Maggie shared a room and brother Sam slept in the tiny maid's quarters off the kitchen).

A pair of Napoleon III chairs and a 19th-century wing chair surround a custom horsehair-covered ottoman in the living room; the sofa, in a Clarence House fabric, cocktail table, and rug are custom designs, the lanterns are from Ann-Morris, Inc., and the curtains are in a Claremont silk.

Entry

Entry

But in 2011, the conversation changed for good. They fell in love with the first house they saw and made an offer within the week. "Our kids didn't have schools to go to, and we hadn't put our apartment on the market or checked in with the people we worked with," Keith says, still a tad wide-eyed at the boldness of it all. "We weren't any further along with that stuff than we were when we first started talking about it a decade earlier. The house precipitated everything."

Mary, left, and Maggie with Ellie, a springer spaniel, in the entry; the circa-1820 settee is upholstered in horsehair, the pendant light is by the Urban Electric Co., and the wallpaper is by Adelphi Paper Hangings.